Global Cement News

US: Air Products is preparing to build a new global headquarters in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. The new site will be situation around 2km from its existing location in Allentown. Ground breaking is expected in March 2019 with occupancy scheduled for the summer of 2021. The new location will be the base for approximately 2000 Air Products employees with capacity for growth.

The decision to change headquarters has been taken to allow the company to modernise its facilities. The new headquarters site will include new administration offices, a research and development (R&D) facility, and an enclosed parking structure for employees.

Air Products operates an industrial gases business providing atmospheric and process gases and related equipment to manufacturing markets, including the cement and lime industries as well as refining and petrochemical, metals, electronics, and food and beverage sectors. Air Products is also a supplier of liquefied natural gas process technology and equipment.

China/Denmark: Denmark’s FLSmdith and China National Building Material (CNBM) have signed a framework agreement about future collaboration. Song Zhiping, chairman of CNBM Group and Thomas Schulz, Group chief executive officer (CEO) of FLSmidth signed the deal at FLSmidth’s headquarters in Denmark in July 2018.

"It was a pleasure to welcome the guests and to participate in such collaborative discussions about future opportunities to work together. Through this framework agreement, we see numerous benefits over the coming years for us and our customers, such as expediting our quotation response time, which will improve our delivery performance and increase productivity," said Schulz.

FLSmidth is an engineering company that provides machinery and connected services to the cement and mineral industries. CNBM Group is both the world’s largest cement producer and a leading cement plant construction company. The companies have worked together on projects previously, such as the Relizane cement plant order for ETHRB Group in Algeria.

Kyrgyzstan: Tianjin Cement Industry Design & Research Institute (TDI) has successfully ignited the kiln on a new clinker production line at Kyrgyzstan Southern Cement. The line has a clinker production capacity of 2500t/day.

Tajikistan: Tajikistan’s cement production rose by 39% year-on-year to 1.8Mt in the first half of 2018 from 1.3Mt in the same period in 2017. Of this total 0.7Mt was exported to neighbouring countries, principally Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, according to the Avesta news agency. The local cement industry is benefiting from government-backed infrastructure projects, a rise in domestic house building and a buoyant export market.

The country produced 3.1Mt of cement in 2017 and over 1Mt of this was exported. It has 13 cement producers with an estimated production capacity of 4Mt/yr. Local demand for cement is estimated to be 3 – 3.5Mt/yr.

China: The city of Tangshan ordered cement and steel plants to shut down for five days to prevent pollution. The directive followed a forecast of heavy smog in mid-July 2018, according to a source quoted by Reuters. Tangshan, an industrial city, is located in the northeast of Hebei province.